


Ghosts of Riverrun

by coolhandjennie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Meet-Cute, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 10:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10488531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolhandjennie/pseuds/coolhandjennie
Summary: She’d been walking home from her train stop a week ago after a particularly shitty day at work, when she was accosted outside her apartment building by what she initially thought was a Ren Fair cosplayer. Was she about to get mugged by a knight in shining armor? Because that would just be fucking great.Rated T for language





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikkiM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikkiM/gifts), [QuizzicalQuinnia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuizzicalQuinnia/gifts).



> ...for their constant support and encouragement over at JBO. This ship and its fandom have given my writing the focus and discipline I needed to grow, and I'm immensely grateful to the time and effort these two women put into the forum. Round robins, prompts, and "theme months" like Meet-Cute March are like gummy vitamins for writers: sure they taste great, but they're good for you too! /lays gift on top of embarrassingly large pile of other gifts/
> 
> For the record, I own nothing and no one and feel only the smidgiest smidges of guilt to be manipulating GRRM's badass characters against his wishes.

Brienne pulled up at a strip mall in Winterfell as directed by her GPS. She shifted her rented SUV into neutral and idled in front of a bohemian storefront. It would look like a funky used bookstore or an upscale head shop, if not for the large blinking neon outline of a crystal ball over hot pink letters that shouted “PSYCHIC”. This was definitely the place. However much she didn’t want to be here.

A psychic. This is what she’d come to. She, Brienne Tarth, descendant of the Warrior of Tarth herself, seeking help from a charlatan. For what else could a self-proclaimed psychic be, after all? Medium of the North, indeed. This was not the type of professional help she needed. Apparently the girl had a sterling reputation, as these sorts of things went. Brienne wasn’t sure what the criteria were for judging psychic ability. Not that it mattered. Brienne doubted she’d be able to help and Brienne would be forced to live out her days in exhausted misery, haunted to death by the most infuriating ghost ever to curse the spirit realm.

“This is Winterfell? Things have not improved.”

Brienne’s eyes closed in despair as the ubiquitous voice in her head broke his silence. The ten hour drive from Riverrun was the most peace and quiet she’d gotten since first meeting the ghost who’d been haunting her for the past week. She didn’t even get a respite while she slept because she dreamed of him at night. All night. Every night. For seven nights. Some of the dreams were nightmares. Some…were not.

Still, the dreams might have been manageable if she didn’t have to listen to his smart mouth all day, every day. In the shower. At work. On the treadmill. The only time he was silent was on the subway. Moving fast seemed to render him mute. Sometimes she intentionally missed her stop just for three extra minutes of quiet.

She’d been walking home from her stop a week ago after a particularly shitty day at work, when she was accosted outside her apartment building by what she initially thought was a Ren Fair cosplayer. Was she about to get mugged by a knight in shining armor? Because that would just be fucking great.

“Ho there, wench! I’ve been looking for you.”

The most beautiful man Brienne had ever seen loomed in the darkness. She never feared for her safety as the tall, broad, bearded blond man decked out in gleaming golden armor approached her, though maybe her sanity, once she realized she could see _through_ him, a Highgarden rosebush clearly visible through his torso. Her mouth gaped in silent shock. She must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or both.

The knight beheld her bemusedly. “Eloquent as always, wench.”

“My name is Brienne,” she burst out, not sure why she was offering personal information to a stranger. A strange stranger, at that.

He smirked. “I know. I prefer wench.”

“Well, I don’t know you.” Brienne did not have time for this shit. If this turned out to be another prank by those assholes at work, someone was going to the hospital.

“You’ve always been a terrible liar, _Brienne._ Of course you know me, don’t be ridiculous. We need to finish our quest.”

Brienne walked into her building and shut the door in his face. 

“Why are you fucking about? Let’s get going!” he admonished from the middle of her apartment.

She dropped her keys in terror. There was no way he could have beaten her up five flights of stairs. Also, it was much harder to dismiss the man’s transparency as a trick of the light when he stood embedded in her kitchen table.

“What’s going on?” she whispered hoarsely, feeling her forehead for fever.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m haunting you. I got tired of waiting around. Our quest won’t champion itself, you know.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not on any quest.” Why was she responding to him as if he were a normal person?? Had she suffered a stroke? Maybe she was lying in the hospital right now, lost in some bizarre dream fugue state. If not, the only other explanation was that she was actually crazy, or he was actually a ghost.

He rolled his eyes. “Are you ever _not_ obtuse? You’re Brienne of Tarth, aren’t you? I’m Jaime Lannister. Hel _lo!_ Ringing any bells?”

Fugue state or no, Brienne decided to ‘go with it’ and fully engaged in the conversation. “Jaime Lannister, as in the Kingslayer?” That was a surprise.

His jaw twitched and his left hand clenched into a fist. “Kingslayer? _Really_? After all this time, _that’s_ how I’m remembered? Whatever happened to Sir Goldenhand the Just?” he muttered.

“Brienne of Tarth is my ancestor. What did she have to do with you?”

“It’s not known?” he asked, baleful. “I’d hoped it was known. I can’t quite remember…” He looked so crestfallen that she almost felt bad for him. Almost. 

“Sorry. But I’ve definitely heard of you, in legends and stuff. And her. The Warrior of Tarth.”

He smiled. “The Warrior? She’d like that. Better than that other title." 

“Which one? Brienne the Beauty?”

“That, too,” he said with a smirk.

Brienne had grown up in the shadow of the Beauty of Tarth, a cruel fate for an ugly child. Her ancestor was Tarth’s shining glory, a hero of mythic proportions, and a fabled beauty. Brienne preferred to think of her as Brienne the Blue or the Warrior of Tarth, paladin of the Last Great Winter, a more identifiable hero for a strong, fierce, true hearted girl. She’d never heard any stories connecting the Warrior to the Kingslayer, though, and she couldn’t help being drawn into his tale.

“You mentioned a quest. What was it?”

“Yes, our quest, the quest that bound us together. We were looking for…someone…” He trailed off again.

It was a fascinating and rather monumental historical discovery that two of the world’s greatest legends were companions, possibly even lovers, if she was getting an accurate read on this guy. Of course it would be the two most beautiful legends.

 “How long have you been looking for her? The Warrior, I mean.”

He frowned. “I’m not sure, really. Too long.” His expression became wistful. “I miss her.”

“Why?” 

“She’s good for me. I like who I am when I’m with her.”

“Jaime Lannister and the Beauty of Tarth. Of course.” She shook her head and smiled, perhaps a bit bitterly. “So, who’s prettier?”

The Kingslayer snorted but looked up at her with kind eyes. “Me,” he stated firmly. He looked her over. “I should have known you weren’t her right away. You’re much uglier.” 

His cruelty surprised her only because it was so direct, as opposed to behind her back. It barely stung. She’d grown into her looks long ago and had learned to give very few fucks about the world’s opinion of her.

Without missing a beat, he went on to regale her with all their various exploits. Due to his inherent sarcasm, she couldn’t tell if he found her (the Beauty, not Brienne) ridiculous or fascinating. His stories were interspersed with a running commentary on the mundane details of _her_ life, here in the present. And the questions. Always with the questions. Why was she so awkward, and why didn’t she have a man, and why shouldn’t she punch her dickhead co-worker square in the jaw like he deserved, and was that really what she was going to wear? And on, and on, and on.

She hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since he’d arrived. Her dreams – always starring him, front and center – were unsettling and left her agitated in the morning. Not how she liked her days to start. At first the dreams were pretty traumatic. Lots of dungeons and chopped off hands and threats of rape. Given what she knew of the Kingslayer legend and considering the ghost’s golden right hand, she was pretty sure these were more flashbacks than dreams, glimpses into the Kingslayer’s life from the Warrior of Tarth’s perspective. If her dreams represented their reality, she imagined they must have lived in a constant state of PTSD, where the P stood for “perpetual”.

On the second night she dreamt of a bath in the ruins of Harrenhal. It was…stirring. But the third night was the worst, for more than one reason. The nightmare began in a bear pit. She wasn’t sure what was more ghastly, her wounds or the hideous pink dress she wore. She jerked awake in bed, sweaty and panting, when the last arrow pierced the bear’s hide. It took a moment for to gain her bearings, only to realize there was a man’s head between her legs, making her feel things she’d never felt with another person in the room. She knew it was the Kingslayer and not just because she recognized the golden glint of his hair. She just _knew_. So it was a shock when he raised his head to smirk at her, beard glistening with her wetness, only to discover it _wasn’t_ her apparition after all but a close facsimile. His hair was more closely cropped, his beard more neatly trimmed, though his eyes were the same luminous green and his grin was just as devilish.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

His lips remained still but his voice echoed in her head. “Jaime. My name is Jaime.”

Brienne awoke with a start, for real this time. Still sweaty, still panting, but most definitely alone in her bedroom.

“Troublesome dreams, wench?”

Mostly alone, anyway.

Jaime only stopped remarking upon her every move when he was pestering her to find ‘his’ Brienne. The constant bombardment, along with the escalating eroticism of her dreams, eventually drove Brienne to her breaking point. There was only so much unresolved sexual tension a girl could handle and still retain her sanity. 

“And how exactly am I to find her, do you think?” she finally snapped at him two days ago. “The Westeros-wide web? Place an ad in the newspaper? ‘Kingslayer seeks Warrior of Tarth, serious inquiries only.’ D’you think that’ll do it?”

Her voice rose in pitch and volume until she was shouting at the top of her lungs. On the subway platform. During rush hour. Surrounded by strangers. Strangers who were watching her warily as she yelled at herself, because nobody could see or hear Jaime, because he was a fucking ghost. And she was shouting at him. The train pulled up swiftly and she boarded without another word. She rode for over an hour just to have a thought to herself for five godsdamned minutes. The idea of ‘finding’ another ghost, who might not even exist, was utterly preposterous. But then so was being haunted in the first place. She had to believe there was a way to become unhaunted because the prospect of spending the rest of her life with Jaime Lannister in her head crushed all the air out of her lungs. And not in a good way.

When she finally got off at her stop, Jaime was waiting on the platform. And since when had she started thinking of him as _Jaime_?

“Done sulking?” he asked, in a sulk of his own. 

She waited until they were alone on the street, walking toward her building. “How do you think we can find her? Where do we even start?”

He smiled at her use of the word ‘we’. “That’s the spirit, wench! Tell me, is the sect of R’hllor still kicking about? Those lunatics know a thing or two about summoning the dead.”

Brienne didn’t like the sound of that. Although it made her wonder if they performed exorcisms at the Great Sept. She’d keep that idea in her back pocket as a worst case scenario. For lack of any better solutions, she ended up looking online. The Medium of the North landed at the top of her search, a pretty, unassuming young woman with long red hair. Definitely not Brienne’s idea of a fortune teller. She would have scrolled to the next result if not for the stricken look on Jaime’s face.

“That’s it, that’s her,” he said with wide eyes.

Brienne frowned. “ _That’s_ the Warrior of Tarth?”

“No, you daft cow. That’s our quest, _she_ was our quest. Where is she?”

Brienne checked the address. “Winterfell Village. Her name is Sansa Stark.”

Jaime nodded with supreme confidence. “Yes. Of course. We must prepare for the journey immediately. Will you travel by way of the speed rail tube? It will likely get us there at least a fortnight quicker than in my day.”

It was about six hundred miles from Riverrun to Winterfell. Brienne rented a car instead of taking the train, happy to take a little longer getting there so she could enjoy some Jaime-free peace and quiet. She listened to an entire audiobook about ancient Valyria without a single interruption, minus a brief encounter when she stopped for gas between Greywater Watch and Moat Cailin. It was bliss.

But now that they’d arrived in Winterfell, Brienne found herself surprisingly hesitant to go inside. Not that she thought this would work, or that it would rid her of Jaime, but the notion of being rid of him didn’t seem so appealing as it had ten hours earlier. It was kind of nice having another person around, someone to pay attention to her, even if she wanted to choke him half the time. She felt less invisible, somehow. Which was just too ironic and/or absurd. That’s it, when she got back home she would schedule an appointment with a neurologist. Hopefully this was all just the result of a brain tumor, not a descent into madness.

A flash of light caught her eye. “Is your sword glowing?”

A pulsing light emanated from where the jeweled hilt met the scabbard of his longsword. He unsheathed a few inches to reveal silvery blue flames undulating along the steel. It was hard to tell but she thought he went pale.

“She’s near,” he whispered.

“Of course she’s near, this is her business.”

His eyes closed in exasperation. “Not the girl. _Brienne_! I mean, the other Brienne. _My_ Brienne. Well, not mine, not exactly, but I don’t see why – ”

Brienne got out of the car before he went off on another tangent and she entered the shop, which was set up as a waiting area. The décor matched every cliché she could have imagined. Gauzy scarves draped over dim lamps, muted strains of pan pipes over a cheap sound system, cloying incense hanging in the air. But other than being tacky, it was a comfortably appointed room.

Four other people were already seated, most of them engaged in conversation with someone only they could see. There was a middle aged black woman being haunted by a murdered white man trying to contact his living wife; a young man who believed he’d been turned into a werewolf during his vacation abroad and was now haunted by the ravaged ghost of his dead friend; and a frazzled looking mother with her young son. “He sees dead people,” she explained matter-of-factly.

Jaime’s gaze was focused on the wall dividing the waiting area from what was presumably Ms. Stark’s…office? For the first time since he appeared, Jaime walked away from her, disappearing through the wall into the adjacent room. Brienne was at such a loss, she marched through the room with an uncharacteristic lack of concern about cutting the line. The purple door on the wall Jaime walked through careened open just as she lifted her tentative fist to knock. She found herself staring into the eyes of the man who’d fucked her senseless every night for the past week. In her dreams, that is. Not actually. She hadn’t _actually_ been fucked since…longer than she cared to think about, let alone admit. But even though she’d never actually had sex with this guy, it _felt_ like she had. And in the nanoseconds they faced each other, she got the distinct impression that he felt the same way. Which made no sense, of course, but by now Brienne had accepted that sense no longer ruled the day.

He was Jaime, but _not_ – less shaggy, more angular. The green of his eyes shone brighter and he was, well, opaque. He was also holding the door open as opposed to dissolving through it. He looked like she felt: shell shocked, shaken, and…turned on?

“Holy shit,” was all he said, seemingly frozen in the doorway.

The scene unfolding behind him immediately drew her attention. Jaime – _her_ Jaime, Ghost!Jaime, was standing in front of the wall he’d just stepped through. Across the room stood an equally translucent figure, also armored, also bearing a flaming sword. Brienne’s eyes widened as she beheld the _motherfucking Warrior of Tarth_. Who, she was shocked to discover, was the spitting fucking image of herself, give or take some extreme facial scarring. She approached Jaime with an accusing glare.

He met her gaze and shrugged. “All I said was that I was prettier 

“And that I was uglier,” she reminded him with a soft smile.

He smirked in a sly way. “Well, eye of the beholder and all that.” He stared longingly at his Brienne, flickering in the opposite corner, definitely more skittish than Brienne would’ve expected The Warrior to be. Of course, the woman wasn’t facing an army or a dragon, she was facing Jaime Lannister, so Brienne could understand her maidenly reticence.

Brienne was more surprised by Jaime’s hesitation. “What’s wrong with you? This is what you’ve been torturing me about all this time, right? Get the fuck over there.”

After a week of near constant contact, she saw Jaime Lannister look nervous for the first time. Not!Jaime – who’s name she didn’t know – and Sansa Stark watched the scene play out in continued silence. 

The two ghostly knights approached each other with joyous trepidation. Despite Jaime’s all-consuming drive to reunite with her, he found himself at a loss when faced with the answer to his prayers. The Warrior didn’t speak, but tears shone in her eyes and her chin seemed a bit wobbly. When they were finally face to face they paused, then crashed against each other like breaking waves. Their kiss was an awkward, desperate, passionate thing, while simultaneously being totes adorbs. Jaime’s leg jerked around her hip, lurching her closer to him with a clash of armor until he remembered himself and their surroundings. He stepped away from her abruptly, hands still clamped on her shoulders lest she slip through his fingers again. Never again.

He clearly owed a tremendous debt of gratitude to the substitute wench for all her patience and grace. She was not his wench, true, but the things that made up the core of her were the same. And she helped him fulfill his quest, just as his Maid had. Hopefully to be the Not!Maid very, very soon if he played his cards right. Which reminded him.

He turned his attention to his still silent present day counterpart. “We owe her a debt,” he said pointedly.

Brow furrowed in bemusement, if not confusion, Not!Jaime nodded in understanding.

Finally Jaime looked to the Not!Wench with fondness and perhaps some regret. “You’re alright, Brienne,” he told her with an appreciative grin. He clutched his warrior’s hand and turned to her to say, “I think we both know where we’re headed to next.” She nodded in agreement but arched a haughty eyebrow at him. “What did I do?!” he exclaimed.

“It’s funny that you manage to call _her_ by _her_ name without issue, and yet when you speak to _me_ – ” 

“Don’t start with me, wench,” Jaime replied with relish, planting a wet smacker on her lips and winking at Brienne and Not!Jaime before they disappeared in a flash of blue flame.

Brienne found herself alone in the room with two strangers, one of whom she’d imagined naked. She turned to the young woman. “Ms. Stark? I’m Brienne Tarth.” 

Not!Jaime barked a laugh. “Of course you bloody well are.” She looked at him warily, not sure where this was going. He offered his right hand to shake. “Jaime Lannister,” he introduced himself drily. He waggled his fingers at her. “Not the Kingslayer variety, I’m afraid.”

She accepted his hand but instead of shaking, their hands remained clasped. Their eyes held matching expressions of wonder and apprehension as they stared at each other in silence. Awkward silence. 

Sansa Stark coughed politely, sneaking a look at the clock on the wall. “I’m so very glad your issues seem to have been…resolved. Unfortunately, I must get on with my next appointment, it’s a bit backed up out there.”

Jaime let go of Brienne’s hand abruptly and left without a word. Brienne stammered thanks and apologies as she backed out of the room. She kept her head ducked down to avoid the annoyed stares she received from the waiting clientele. Leave it to Jaime to leave her holding the bag. _Her_ Jaime, that is. Well, the Warrior’s Jaime, at any rate. The pang of sadness elicited by the thought of him hiccupped into surprise when she found Not!Jaime – more like RealLife!Jaime – on the sidewalk. He seemed to be debating something with himself, pacing in front of her rental.

A familiar smirk tugged at his lips when he saw her. “Nice car.”

“How do you know it’s mine?”

He responded with a knowing look. Brienne could feel the blush spread across her chest, up her neck, and over face. She knew why he was smirking. Because they had sex in that car. In a dream, of course. They had sex in a dream. In that exact car. Well, the same model anyway. Brienne nearly died when she picked it up from the rental agency, as the previous night she’d dreamed of fucking Jaime’s brains out in the backseat of this spacious yet fuel efficient hybrid SUV. On the one hand, it was intriguing to learn that their hauntings bound their dreams together; on the other, it was completely mortifying because if she knew what he looked like naked, the reverse must also be true.

“So, the Kingslayer and the Beauty of Tarth, how ‘bout that?” he asked to rescue them both from her flustered silence.

“Warrior,” she corrected.

“Sorry?”

“The Warrior of Tarth. It’s more accurate, anyway,” she muttered.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said with a small smile, also familiar. “She had her charms.”

Brienne snorted and rolled her eyes. “Right.”

They continued to loiter awkwardly on the sidewalk, neither of them sure how to move the conversation along, neither of them ready to part ways. It unnerved Brienne to realize just how much she didn’t want to say goodbye.

“So…how long was he hanging around?” New!Jaime finally asked.

“About a week. You?”

“Almost two.”

Brienne’s eyes widened with dread. “Jaime was great but I don’t think I could’ve survived a second week of verbal diarrhea.”

“With her, it was more what she _didn’t_ say that would get to me. Although she got in a few good zingers, believe me.” He sounded almost proud of her.

“Why _now_ , do you think?”

“Why, or how?” he asked.

“I gave up trying to figure out ‘how’ days ago. My brain was going to break. The good news is, I probably don’t have a brain tumor.”

“Me either! What a relief, right? At least now we know we’re just crazy.”

She laughed and he smiled. He had a pretty great smile. It was finally dawning on her that no one could ever understand what she had just gone through, except him. They would be connected by this shared experience for the rest of their lives. Not that she’d ever see him again, she reminded herself briskly.

“Do you want to get a cup of coffee or a drink or something and talk about what the hell happened?” he asked. “I’m still pretty weirded out. Your existence is kind of blowing my mind right now.”

She laughed again. “I know how you feel. Yeah, sure, that’d be great. Are you parked close?” 

“No, I took the bus up from Fairmarket.”

“Fairmarket? You live in the Riverlands?”

“Yeah, just outside the Whispering Wood. How’s that for irony? I’ve been knocking around there for a few years. A bit at loose ends, really.”

Brienne could relate. “Me too. I live in Riverrun, which is a great city but…I don’t know, I’m not quite sure why I’ve stuck around so long. Wait, you took the _bus_? How long did that take?”

“Eighteen glorious hours of solitude. Crammed in amongst fifty other people of dubious hygiene, of course. But you know what I mean.” They shared a smile of understanding. “There’s a coffee shop around the corner, near the bus station. Want to walk or,” he grinned salaciously at the car, “should we take a ride?”

Brienne felt her blush threaten to invade once again. “We can walk,” she said without meeting his eyes. He laughed and lead the way. As if it was nothing, his hand reached for hers as they walked along and made small talk.

“So how long was your drive?”

“Ten hours.” 

“Nice!”

“Yeah. I’ve come to appreciate silence on a whole new level. When does your bus leave?”

“I didn’t buy a return ticket. Frankly, I was expecting all this to take longer. I’ll probably take the train back. Unless…you want some company.”

She looked at him sideways. “You want to spend ten hours in a car with me?”

He shrugged. “Or you can return the rental here and ride the train with me. Although a road trip might be fun.” 

He squeezed her hand and Brienne realized he was flirting with her. The thought made her extremely nervous and tingly all over, as flirtations with gorgeous men are wont to do. Especially when she’s already visualized herself having sex with them.

She shrugged noncommittally, trying to play it cool. “Road trips can be fun.”

They arrived at the café and he held the door open for her. As she walked past he leaned in close to her ear and murmured, “Especially in _that_ car.”

A brief flash of insecurity zipped through her. Was he mocking her? She stopped in her tracks and pinned him in place with her eyes. He leaned back on his heels to give her some space. There was no trace of a smirk and she could see the heat in his eyes. No, he wasn’t mocking her. Regardless of how little sense the last week of her life made, up to and including the introduction of a drop dead gorgeous man who seemed to be interested in her, she couldn’t deny how real this connection felt. She was attracted to him, true, but it went beyond the physical. She felt connected to him on a level deeper than attraction or lust, and she knew he felt it too.

She took his hand in hers again and pulled him inside. “Especially,” she agreed. 

“We could make it a real adventure, see some sights,” he continued, wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her closer. “It could be research for the article we were clearly meant to coauthor regarding the heretofore unknown connection between The Kingslayer and the Warrior of Tarth.”

She raised an eyebrow at his fancy word choices but could tell he was leading up to something, so she waited for him to continue.

“I understand the ruins at Harrenhal are fascinating. The baths, in particular. Historically speaking.”  

Brienne was grateful for Jaime’s arm around her. She may have already fallen but he didn’t need to see her stumble.

**Author's Note:**

> I admit, I indulged myself a bit with Sansa's haunted clientele. Let me know if you recognized them! :)


End file.
